December 27, 2016

In the two months since our last review, RWBY has moved right along. The production values continue to be superb.

The backgrounds, once akin to a '50s UPA cartoon, are now awe-inspiring at times and the animation is consistently top-notch.

I sure hope he doesn't...drop the map.

We've now had a bit of time with all four girls of the eponymous team (who are now on different continents).

It's kind of refreshing to see Ruby be the main character in her own show for a change. Most of the action has continued following Ruby, Jaune, Nora and Ren as they trudge across the wilderness on their way to a city where they expect to find answers to the conspiracy against them....unaware that that conspiracy is stalking them.

A few surprising facts have been revealed.

A charity concert for the devastated Kingdom of Vale...but probably not the lyrics she was given to sing. It was always unclear why a racist, rich, entitled, debutante made the career choice that she did 3 years ago. Weiss in particular has already come a really long way as a character, but now we get a better idea of her background and motivations...and that she must be an uncommonly good person given her upbringing. She has yet more awesome up her sleeve...

:Qrow has, in fact been following our heroes and has been taking out a goodly number of the grim they would have had to deal with.

:Yang's mom is, as was suspected, alive and was the teleporting terror who saved Yang's bacon back in season two. Unexpectedly, she's not just an absentee mother, she's the leader of a clan of murderous brigands who loathes her brother (Qrow) for abandoning the tribe to pursue altruistic ends (that presumably include hunting down murderous brigands). She abandoned her daughter when she was appointed head of the tribe. It seems that this clan is the one responsible not only for some of the devastated villages our heroes have encountered, but was responsible for killing Ren's as well as Nora's towns. She is interested in any info Qrow might have on the threat to the world, since a destroyed world might not be pillageable.

Also: That necklace...

:FINALLY!

:The most common written language in Remnant is faux-katakana.

:Tyrian, the member of the council of calamitous villainy who most seems to enjoy his job, was, back in episode 1, given the job of bringing in Ruby for study, sans her eyes if necessary. He was speciffically instructed not to do ANYTHING else. When he arrives and engages RNGR, he pauses for a moment and looks at Jaune in astonishment....muttering to him ruefully that he finds the boy very interesting, but is forbidden from deviating from his current task, which he proceeds to pursue with gusto...which is where the show stands at the moment.

:Professor's Oobleck and Port actually have eyes.
:Oh yeah. It looks like Blake and Sun while trying to avoid any trouble have managed to get themselves in at least as much as Ruby and company.

...some of which may not, strictly speaking, end up being vital to the plot.

This remains a remarkably solid show. It's hard to recommend to someone who hasn't seen it since the first and to a lesser extent the second season are of so much lower quality they are hard to watch now. However the first two seasons are short and the continual upgrades the show goes through are a joy to watch.

For those who stopped watching after...all that stuff...that happened at the end of last season, I do recommend that you set aside 72 minutes of your time to catch up on this season.

The one very minor criticism I think I touched on in an earlier post is that the fight scenes don't QUITE match the spectacular choreography that the late Monty Oum used to such effect early on. Compare this scene from season one which had a shoestring budget and a staff of about 15 that were just learning their craft to this one from last month, which enjoys a larger budget and a staff that has amassed tremendous experience. The second fight is not bad at all and the overall quality of the more recent episodes is absolutely spectacular, but despite the limited budget and resources, Monty Oum's choreography had a sense of dynamism and movement (and while physics is too strong a word, there was no jarring sense that it had been discarded). It is that last bit that his successors, despite their considerable skill, don't quite get yet. This is a very minor quibble but it goes to show that Oum was indeed a singular talent.

That most quibbly of quibbles aside; at the midway point this season is excellent. Despite the dark ending of last season and the frightful repercussions thereof, the show has managed to avoid becoming a bleak misery-fest and, due mainly to the pluck of the characters, it manages to maintain a basically upbeat tone until now.

December 19, 2016

It is also completely devoid of infuriating Mary Sues who are effortlessly good at everything.

Despite its very different tone and style (It is actually a re-skinned Samurai film....complete with Zatoichi!) this is not a rejection of the franchise, its fans or its conceits, but rather a labor of love in homage to the whole kit and kaboodle, complete with geeky references to the trilogy, the prequels and the TV series of the sort that were cute but awkward in the prequels. Here they are done masterfully.

Likewise the female lead is an action girl done exactly right.

The movie's effects are everything one would expect from a Star Wars film done by Disney...and more. This is a gorgeous film with visuals that even by today's standards are stunning and it breaks new ground in FX as well as necromancy (which, upon reflection, I'm pretty sure is a Sith art).

This is a story about desperate bitter people in a dark time who are not all that nice who are at the end of their rope while those they look to for guidance are giving in to despair.

Rogue One is also a story of honor, redemption, hope and courage that manages to be uplifting and inspiring despite its gritty take on the Star Wars universe. This is a beautiful and awesome film that fits in perfectly to the Star Wars canon without the sense of forcing the issue that permeated the prequels.

I also note that almost NONE of the scenes in the trailers appear in the film, (at least as they are shot for the trailers) and this is a very different sort of film than the trailers promise. Quite possibly a better one.

I further note that all they REALLY needed to do to succeed was to flesh this out:

"It is a period of civil war. Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil GALACTIC EMPIRE.

During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet.

Pursued by the Empire's sinister agents, Princess Leia races home aboard her starship, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her people and restore freedom to the galaxy...."

They did.

My only gripe is that the score is not anywhere near as epic as one expects from a Star Wars film, except where John Williams pieces are dusted off and used. This is not as egregious as it normally would be given that this is a very different sort of story.

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I may ruffle feathers, but I think it has set the standard as the best of the SW movies; even better than TESB. Why do I say that?

Simple -- TESB suffers from being the middle movie, with a couple of major unresolved plot points at the end. (Solo captured, "there is another"). At the time, we were all disappointed by the first and intrigued by the second. It was only in retrospect, after the third movie, that fans enshrined the second; moreso after the godawful prequel trilogy.

Rogue suffers a bit from not having a fight near the beginning -- but it's an espionage movie (until it goes full Action/Adventure), and that would have actually hurt it more, I think. So, yes, its slow, but I didn't feel like it was because I'd been warned, and adjusted my expectations.

During the final fight, there was an ebb and flow to the battle, and certain objectives the Rebels had to meet. I was telling myself, "This isn't a pure SW movie; it's a WWII movie -- and then another commentator identified the exact movie: It's the Dirty Dozen. With the caveat that these guys are all volunteers, yes it is.